arbitration institutions

In a wave of efforts by arbitral institutions to share more and more information with the arbitral community, we are in a better position than ever before to observe and compare what arbitral institutions are doing in response to users’ wishes. White & Case’srecent research shows that arbitral institutions are becoming increasingly flexible and responsive to what users are asking for. Flexibility was in fact identified as one of the most valuable characteristics of arbitration in the 2015 International Arbitration Survey conducted by White & Case and Queen Mary, University of London.

White & Case examined the most recent statistics and other information publicly available from ten major arbitral institutions to see if there were any overarching trends or themes that stood out. A very positive factor in itself was the data gathering process in that it revealed a growing willingness by the institutions to publish and share data.

A trigger that came with more warnings than the Daily Mail in a post-colonial gender studies course, the formal notification of Article 50 has brought into relief the fact that the EU-UK legal framework is moving swiftly towards the Rumsfeld paradigm: “There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know”. Read more

Lucy Greenwood, an independent International Arbitrator based in Houston, Texas, provides her insight into the the issues of transparency, data and diversity in the international arbitration field.

What is your current role?

After spending the past 20 years in practice with two major international law firms, I have recently transitioned to become a full time arbitrator.

I joined Linklaters as a trainee in 1996, qualified as a litigator in London in 1998 and rather fell into the practice of international arbitration shortly thereafter. The firm needed an associate to relocate with a partner to the Paris office to establish an international arbitration presence there and asked me to go. Read more

What do you hope the GPC will achieve?

The intention for Hong Kong GPC was to bring together stakeholders from across the disputes market to discuss the issues that face parties at the front line of disputes in Hong Kong, and indeed over 200 people attended on the day. We gained rich and valuable data and from that, we are hoping, will reach some real and tangible recommendations for change. Read more

Historically, third party funding has been prohibited in many Asian jurisdictions, including the busy litigation markets of Hong Kong and Singapore. However, recent changes to regulations on third party funding in both jurisdictions are likely to be a further boost to the region, which has already become popular destination for arbitration – overtaking many traditional competitors. Read more

In almost all instances, arbitration must be contemplated at the contract drafting stage. Parties may, of course, agree to take a dispute to arbitration at any stage, but once a dispute has broken out, positions become polarised, and agreement is accordingly less likely.

The reasons for preferring arbitration clauses to the more usual reference to the courts – in a commercial context – boil down to the so-called “three Es”: expedition, expertise and enforcement. Read more

Reading the headlines, Brexit-ing Britain may appear a hostile place – the public, we are told, favours being told the number of foreigners being employed by companies in Britain, and academics at the London School of Economics find that they are debarred from giving their non-British opinion on Brexit, lest, one assumes, they steal bread from the mouths of native political scientists.